HP UMPC 2133 specs revealed, street date of April 7th?

Filed under: Laptops

We’d been hearing that HP’s slick UMPC 2133 was going sport VIA processors, and now we’ve got some more info to back that up — we just received what appears to be a full spec list for the upcoming machine, and it’s VIA C7-Ms all around, with graphics courtesy of a VIA Chrome 9 chipset. According to our source, these will hit on April 7th, and it looks like those pricing whispers were pretty accurate as well: $600 will buy you a 1.2GHz C7-M, a 120GB drive, 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Basic, while $749 bumps you up to 1.6GHz and Vista Business and adds Bluetooth, another gig of RAM, and a bigger battery. There’s also a mysterious $849 Vista Basic model listed as having “regional” availability (the others are listed as “Smart Buy”) with Bluetooth and bigger battery, but we don’t see why it’s more expensive than the Vista Business version. Regardless, what really caught our eye was the $549 model that shares the same specs as the $600 unit, but looks to be running SuSE Enterprise — another rumor that’s come true. That could be the one that HP expects to sell like hotcakes — after all, the goal is to have people buy these “without a thought,” and that’s certainly not going to happen at $749. We’ll see soon enough, we suppose. Full spec sheet after the break.

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Embedded Phones Will Cure What Ails Ya, Says Father of Cellphones [Cellphones]

Martin Cooper, credited at Motorola with the invention of the first cellphone—2lbs with 20 min battery life—says the next 10 to 15 years will bring embedded phones that will:
• Call and answer using thought controls
• Stay powered by the movement of the body itself
• Diagnose and cure disease by remotely communicating body issues with hospital computers
There are, as you might expect, some obstacles…

Cooper, 79, who since leaving Motorola has run now runs a company called ArrayComm and was instrumental in developing the Jitterbug old people’s phone, gripes that the embeds will only come when society and industry shape up:

• “People are really conservative,” he says, explaining why subcutaneous electronics may not be tantalizing to your mom.

• Phone features need to get simplier. Today’s shoddy interfaces explain how much more development is needed before thought controls are feasible.

• Companies, including Motorola, don’t take enough risks any more. “People thought I was crazy thinking about a phone you can just put in your pocket.” [Reuters]

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Filed under: Robots

The always jam-packed ROBO-ONE competition in Japan was more heated than ever this year, with bi-ped robots tackling others and ripping them limb from limb. Okay, so maybe that’s somewhat of a stretch, but you can rest assured some serious throw downs, um, went down. Interestingly enough, we heard that an i-SOBOT competition was also included (infighting, anyone?), and that the Maru family’s King Kizer took home the gold. That’s all well, fine and good, but we know what you’re after — take a (long) look at the hundreds of photos waiting in the read link below.

[Via MAKE]

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Via [Engadget]

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Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon

Filed under: Cellphones, Features

Last month we were contacted by the late Geoffrey Frost’s personal adviser at Motorola; until Frost’s death in 2005, Numair Faraz worked under the Motorola’s former CMO — the man widely regarded as the father of the RAZR. Like many (ourselves included), over the years Numair has become increasingly disenfranchised with the company’s direction — enough so that he compelled us to publish his letter to Motorola, its board of directors, and MOT investors everywhere regarding the company’s egregious missteps and mismanagement.

In researching the myriad claims raised in this letter — which we believe to be true — we also discovered a number of other unsettling things about Motorola’s corporate past in the last five years, such as certain gross corporate excesses demanded by Zander and his inner circle (like a small fleet of extravagant private jets, where most companies that size might only have one, if any), or the fact that Motorola’s current CEO, Greg Brown, is so technologically out of touch he refuses to use a computer for communications, and has all his email correspondences printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation.

There’s no doubt in our minds that Motorola is in dire straits. But today’s news of the company’s broken-off mobile division only serves to cement the fact that the company no longer knows how to conduct its core consumer business, and is squandering time and money as it flounders in a market that long since passed it by. Motorola did not comment on this story. Letter posted after the break.

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HP UMPC 2133 specs revealed, street date of April 7th?

Filed under: Laptops

We’d been hearing that HP’s slick UMPC 2133 was going sport VIA processors, and now we’ve got some more info to back that up — we just received what appears to be a full spec list for the upcoming machine, and it’s VIA C7-Ms all around, with graphics courtesy of a VIA Chrome 9 chipset. According to our source, these will hit on April 7th, and it looks like those pricing whispers were pretty accurate as well: $600 will buy you a 1.2GHz C7-M, a 120GB drive, 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Basic, while $749 bumps you up to 1.6GHz and Vista Business and adds Bluetooth, another gig of RAM, and a bigger battery. There’s also a mysterious $849 Vista Basic model listed as having “regional” availability (the others are listed as “Smart Buy”) with Bluetooth and bigger battery, but we don’t see why it’s more expensive than the Vista Business version. Regardless, what really caught our eye was the $549 model that shares the same specs as the $600 unit, but looks to be running SuSE Enterprise — another rumor that’s come true. That could be the one that HP expects to sell like hotcakes — after all, the goal is to have people buy these “without a thought,” and that’s certainly not going to happen at $749. We’ll see soon enough, we suppose. Full spec sheet after the break.

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EZ Commander Media Center Remote Features Trackball, 1980s Beige Color Scheme [Gadgets]

Ignoring the retro styling of this EZ Commander remote, it’s got one remarkable feature that makes the whole five-buck-design worthwhile: a trackball. Even though trackballs went out of style for most computer users (some die hards still swear by them) they make plenty of sense to use with a remote, so you can mouse around the screen without having to actually use a mouse. It’s too bad that it costs $80, which is a good $50 more than standard Media Center remotes go for these days. [Think Geek via Gadgettastic via DVice]

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